On the Very Idea of a Thought Experiment - HAL-SHS - Sciences de l'Homme et de la Société
Chapitre D'ouvrage Année : 2011

On the Very Idea of a Thought Experiment

Résumé

If imagination is free to wander about in a thought experiment, without anything equivalent to the principle of reality able to intervene, is it ever possible that a thought experiment would not work per se? Of these two options, only one is real: -- Either all thought experiments are successful, and there is no need to be a stubborn falsificationist to conclude that the very idea of a thought experiment should be abandoned. -- Or there is a distinction between successful and unsuccessful thought experiments, and the idea of a thought experiment could have a certain epistemological depth. In that sense, showing that there is a distinction to be made between successful thought experiments and unsuccessful thought experiments and explaining why there is such a distinction aims not only at making a distinction for the sake of 'taxonomophilia'. The point is also to show that the idea of a thought experiment is a substantive idea that has a certain epistemological depth.
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Dates et versions

halshs-00807059 , version 1 (07-04-2013)

Identifiants

  • HAL Id : halshs-00807059 , version 1

Citer

Jean-Yves Goffi, Sophie Roux. On the Very Idea of a Thought Experiment. Thought Experiments in Historical and Methodological Contexts, Brill, pp.165-191, 2011. ⟨halshs-00807059⟩
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